Becoming Paleo, Part 7: Switching to the Paleo Diet

Meals like this simple mix of stir-fried broccoli, carrots, and beef became a regular feature of my life once I went Paleo. By John Michael

With the projections of anxiety deactivated, and with my connection to my health instinct firmly established, I could finally begin my switch to the Paleo diet. I’m not going to pretend that it was an overnight switch; all in all, it took me about a month and a half to become 100% Paleo. A large part of the reason for this delay was that I was still bothered by the ghosts of my anxious cravings. Even though they were nowhere nearly as strong as they had been before, I still didn’t struggle to resist them, because I feared their repression. Instead, I would indulge them, and carefully observe myself as I did so, hunting for clues as to the reason why I felt these minor cravings, and then I would alter my behavior according to whatever knowledge I gained from these observations.

Sporadic cravings aside, there were other challenges that going Paleo presented me with. Now that a large portion of the food that I used to eat was out of the picture, I had to learn how to cook new meals. Fortunately, though, my Paleo meals are generally very simple, often consisting of no more than a portion of meat, a mix of vegetables, and a piece of fruit. I also had to learn where the best places to buy my Paleo foods were, and whether there were dangers associated with the consumption of these new foods, like pesticide contamination in my fruits and vegetables, or mercury contamination in my fish. Yet these challenges were relatively simple and limited in scope when compared to the great challenge that I faced each time that I finished a Paleo meal.

Even though I would only eat as much as I needed, and would never overeat, after each Paleo meal I would feel an enormous surge of energy that prevented me from being sedentary; I was often so full of energy that I would find it necessary to use my body for at least a half an hour. Obviously this interfered with my work schedule, but it became a necessary component of my new Paleo lifestyle, because to ignore this energy would actually cause me physical discomfort.

I soon found that my switching to the Paleo diet was radically changing my life. I was transforming from an unhealthy and sedentary young man who spent a good part of his free time seeking out the industrial foods that calmed his anxious cravings, to a relatively healthy and fit young man who had begun to spend his free time exercising and engaged in other active endeavors. The change that I had made to my diet was echoing throughout my entire life, and leading to great and positive alterations in my personal culture.

Suddenly, upon becoming 100% Paleo, I was faced with a question. “What should I do with all of this energy?” I asked myself, and, surprisingly, my answer was, “I think I’ll take up dancing.”

Thanks for reading about the transformative journey that I undertook in order to switch to the Paleo Diet. If you have a similar story, or if you’d just like to talk about the challenges that you’ve faced in leaving behind industrial foods and switching to this diet, then please feel free to post them in the comments section below.

Becoming Paleo, Part 6: Implementing the Transformation

By John Michael

Although a whiff of chocolate inhaled while passing the candy aisle in my local grocery store would still tempt me to buy a treat, I came to see that the desire excited in me by these industrial sweets was hollow, and a relic of the conditioning that the projections of anxiety had subjected me to.Understanding how the health instinct worked was a major step in the right direction, but it alone was not enough to alter my poor-eating habits. In order to become Paleo, and so leave behind the industrial foods of the Standard American Diet (SAD), I had to implement this transformation by actually changing the projections of anxiety back to the original health instinct. It was not enough just to understand the mechanics of this transformation; step-by-step, I had to alter my eating habits so that they reflected this understanding.

Perhaps the first, and, without a doubt in my mind, the most important step, was learning how to recognize the health instinct upon its first manifestation in my consciousness, before I repressed it and caused it to animate the projections of anxiety. Upon setting myself to do this, what I found was that the health instinct, in its first appearance, was cooperative, instead of coercive, like the projections of anxiety. For example, the brief and innocuous image of an orange would appear in my mind, and, because my health instinct lacked the compelling power of anxiety, it was easy for me to ignore this suggestion, especially if I found the pursuit and consumption of an orange inconvenient at that moment. But if I ignored the suggestion for too long, this was tantamount to repression, and the energy that had animated the image of the orange would come to animate the projections of anxiety.

Once I learned how to recognize this mechanism, I discovered that I could deactivate the projections of anxiety by remembering the earlier suggestions of the health instinct, and then working to follow those suggestions. For example, if the suggestion of consuming a banana came to my mind, but I decided to delay the eating of one, then the instinct would return, sometimes in a few minutes, and other times after seconds only, as a projection of anxiety, with a glass of water turning into a chocolate bar, and pears turning into doughnuts. But, by drinking the glass of water, or by eating a pear, I found myself set free from the compelling images of chocolate and doughnuts. It was only because I was committed to embracing the logic of my health instinct that reversing the projections of anxiety in this manner was so easy to accomplish.

Another step in this transformation was learning how to recognize food temptations that were the result of my being conditioned by the projections of anxiety. For instance, I would walk by a bakery, and, upon catching sight of the pastries on display through its windows, I would feel a momentary desire to purchase something, like a chocolate-covered croissant. But, as there was no projection associated with this desire, I was not compelled to stop and buy anything. I realized that because I associated relief and comfort with the foods that I had eaten under the influence of the projections of anxiety, I had become reflexively attracted to these sweet industrial treats. In order to overcome this conditioned temptation, I had to alter the knowledge that I associated with these sweets, by shifting my associations from those of relief and comfort, which had become attached to these foods in my mind, to associations that were reflective of the foods’ new reality – that they were unhealthy and unnecessary treats, which ended up disfiguring my physique, and doubtlessly jeopardizing my health in other less immediately noticeable ways.

With these two steps, I had begun to shift my perspective regarding industrial foods, and with this shift in perspective came a shift in reality with regards to my diet. When I would eat a cookie, I would pay close attention to the flavors that composed it. The first thing that I noticed when doing this was that these flavors were not as pleasurable as I had imagined them to be before, when I was under the influence of the projections of anxiety. With my newly refined attention, I found that this was the case with all of my treat foods. This change in personal taste might have been due to the absence of the projections’ compelling influence, or perhaps it was due to my new associations, which identified these foods as unhealthy on sight. I didn’t concern myself too much with discerning which was the case; it was enough for me that I had changed my old eating habits.

Slowly, I came to see that this shift in perspective regarding my diet was part of a larger mental transformation, of a movement from misery to joy. As long as I ignored my responsibility to listen to my instincts and to act on their suggestions, then I would be a victim to these instincts automatized in their negative aspects, and so I would live in misery. But once I accepted my responsibility to cooperate with these instincts, then I would have a say in my choices, and, free from the compelling power of these instincts’ negative aspects, I would experience joy. 

Stay tuned for Becoming Paleo, Part 7: Switching to the Paleo Diet.

Becoming Paleo, Part 5: Transforming The Projections of Anxiety

In order to be able to choose to eat the orange, instead of being driven to eat the cookies, I had to learn to listen to my health instinct.Post by John Michael

Addressing the problems of health when they appeared was all that it took to begin shutting down the projections of anxiety. So, for the original problem, “I will be alone tonight,” all that I had to do to prevent its repression was to commit myself to addressing it, thereby rousing myself from my ignorance, and expressing a willingness to know. This could have taken the form of seeking out a friend, or of merely appraising my situation in the light of my lack of friends; what was important was the perspective that I took, one that was oriented toward the problem’s solution – and when action was necessary, then I would have to act.

Although the transformation of anxiety was rather simple, it took me two months to learn how to do it, because I was dealing with poor eating habits that had been entrenched over several years, and, while it’s easy to realize that eating healthfully is good for you, it’s another thing entirely to reprogram your bad habits. But that’s what I was doing.

Shifting my perspective with regards to my health instinct from one of willful ignorance to one of cooperative curiosity did not mean that I had to be constantly on my toes; just like the ignorance that activated the projections of anxiety, after a while the willingness to know became habitual. But at first I had to pay close attention to myself, because the logic of this transformation is broad, and has different applications in various situations, though the underlying principle remains the same, which is that this instinct is concerned with my health and the health of those around me.

The logic of the transformation is quite simple: I can either take responsibility for my health, or I can ignore this responsibility. When I take responsibility, I observe the psychic contents arriving in my mind from the health instinct, and, noting their trajectory, I decide whether or not to act on them, and then how best to do so – though I have to be careful, because by not acting on them, I might repress them, and so activate the projections of anxiety. Which is to say that something has to be done with this energy, because if I ignore it, then I repress it, and it returns to my consciousness in the form of a compelling force, anxiety, which coerces my ego into doing what it presents.

Examination of my eating problem had led me to this, the fruit of my investigation, the realization that, if I allow myself to be ignorant of my health instinct, I get pushed around by it, and bullied into doing what it wants, but if I listen to it, then I can take control of my health, and nothing regarding it will happen without my consent, allowing me to guide the course of action proposed by this instinct, instead of falling under the merciless sway of the projections of anxiety.

Stay tuned for Becoming Paleo, Part 6: Implementing the Transformation 

Related Posts
Becoming Paleo, Part 1: The Yale Food Addiction Scale
Becoming Paleo, Part 2: The Anxiety Barrier 
Becoming Paleo, Part 3: Breaking the Anxiety Barrier 
Becoming Paleo, Part 4: The Projections of Anxiety 

John Michael is a traveling writer and a teacher with a deep interest in humankind’s connection to the natural world. Learn more.

Becoming Paleo, Part 4: The Projections of Anxiety

The projections presented junk food as the only way to escape the anxiety that was growing within me.”Post by John Michael

For the next two months after my day of fasting, I studied my eating problem. I had a basic understanding of the mechanism that underlie it: my mind would recognize a dilemma, which I would choose to ignore instead of resolving, thereby repressing the dilemma, which would then return to my consciousness as an image of food that I would be driven to attain to soothe a growing anxiety. But in order to solve this problem, I would need a deeper understanding of it.

The projections were images of food, generally calorie-rich industrial foods, composed of a mix of flour, sugar, milk, or fat, if not all four of these ingredients. These images always had a will-violating quality: no matter how hard I tried to resist them, their power, in the form of anxiety, would only grow, until my will was overcome, and I found myself seeking out the food that they presented. I decided to begin my investigation at the root of this problem, with the issues that I was repressing by ignoring them when they appeared in my mind.

Under examination, all of these issues appeared related to one another by a theme of health. When the statement, “I am going to be alone tonight,” emerged in my consciousness, it was propelled there by a concern for my health, because, to my own mind at least, human contact is necessary for a healthy life. I repressed this thought by ignoring it as a nuisance, and so, because I hadn’t recognized the legitimacy of its concern, I unwittingly activated the projections of anxiety. It appears then that my mind contains an instinctual concern for my overall health, and that when I ignore my responsibility to both recognize this instinct and act in accordance with its concern, its frustrated psychic energy returns to my unconscious mind, where it animates the mechanism that transmits the projections of anxiety into my consciousness.

Though aware that the following is purely speculation, I would like to suggest an evolutionary rationale for this mechanism. A human being who ignores his instinctual concern for his health and the health of others predisposes himself to be less connected to his social group, because, by not caring for himself attentively, in accordance with his instinct, he can probably contribute less to the group, and because, by not caring for the members of his group as his instinct suggests, he probably reduces the group’s cohesion, at the very least with regards to his own social position. Basically, if you don’t pay attention to both your own health and that of others, you can offer less both to yourself and to your society, and will likely enjoy less of the survival advantages conferred by cooperation, in both its intra- and interpersonal forms. Without cooperation, the chances that I will go hungry in a hunter-gatherer milieu, like the one in which our ancestors evolved this instinct, increase, so the projections of anxiety activate, driving me to eat calorie-rich foods in an attempt to compensate for my reduced chances of survival.

This instinctual process, over which I should have had control, but which my willful ignorance had repressed, forcing it back into my unconscious, where it became automatized in its negative aspect, was living my life for me, but in a way that was contrary to my plans, by forcing me to act in accordance with it. Because I was content to ignore my health instinct, swatting it from my consciousness when it first appeared, as if it were an annoying house fly, it returned to my consciousness with a vengeance, and without regard for my volition, because, by ignoring it when it originally appeared, I had proven that my ego was ignorant of its responsibility to the other parts of my mind, and unaware of its position as conductor in the great mental orchestra of my thought. In its second appearance, the psychic energy of the health instinct had shed its cooperative aspect, and had become implacably coercive. It would be listened to, whether I wanted to hear it or not.

Stay tuned for Becoming Paleo, Part 5: Transforming the Projections of Anxiety.

Related Posts
Becoming Paleo, Part 1: The Yale Food Addiction Scale
Becoming Paleo, Part 2: The Anxiety Barrier 
Becoming Paleo, Part 3: Breaking the Anxiety Barrier